Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death

by Paradigm of Writing

We are far in the future here, and no one is immortal. There are no heroes, or villains. Just people stuck in metamorphosis, an endless loop of rebirth distorted by anemic waves of light. Is your reality the one that is right-side up, or upside down? Which version of yourself is the monster, which the angel? Here... in an arena, we're all gods of our own creation. {SYOT CLOSED}

38. Ascension to Victory

Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death... but not just any chapter... this is #38: Ascension to Victory, or where a victor emerges out of this amazing cast, from this turbulent arena and this long journey that's lasted like 250k+ or some sort of crazy bs. Last chapter, #37, dealt with the semifinals, where six tributes were reduced down to just a measly final two... and they are Vesuvia Vocanova, our female from District 3, created by Platrium, facing off with Poem Cavalli, our female from District 8, created by LordShiro. So... neither Plat or Shiro are strangers to being in final two's, and Shiro especially is very fond of this placement, but anything could happen here. The stuff I have planned in this last showdown as well for our victor ahead... just strap yourselves in, ladies and gents. For this finale, we do get to hear from both tributes, Vesuvia and Poem, as well as from our vice president, Cain, who is a precursor to all the action. I have another soundtrack request for you all; this arena has been inspired by the videogame Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, an absolutely amazing game... and when the fighting starts, as you'll know when, play a song called Hela, which comes directly from the videogame's soundtrack. The moment I heard it, I knew I had to include it. I hope you guys are ready, cause I sure am! Enjoy Chapter #38: Ascension to Victory, where our journey here in the arena, on night eleven, will end with a victor being crowned.

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"Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting," ~ Napoleon Hill

Cain Passionia: Head Gamemaker P.O.V

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It is quiet in his section of the Capitol, a place that Cain Passionia is able to claim all for himself. He doesn't need the noise, the boisterous noise that rises from the lit up streets of the Capitol, denizens out and cheering at the top of their lungs for the sake of being annoying twats. "Annoying twats that you govern," he tells himself, scorn filling his head, as he plucks off a leaf from the rose clenched in his hand. "Maybe I should've let the smoke devour all of them, and just had the Games to myself." He knows what the cheering is for, and if he were a little dumber, Cain could picture himself flocking to the brightly lit asphalt pathways himself.

The finale of the 1st ever Hunger Games is on its way, approaching fast with every dip of the sun, the bands sinking below the horizon as brightness melds into darkness, bleak bands of blue that stretch from side to side in arcing tides of navy. It is expected to be a starry night, which makes Cain smile to himself. A starry night sky full of those who've died, onlooking as a victor is crowned, a silver ornament atop their head, sides draped in a velvet cape that flows long onto the ground… oh, how Cain can picture it now.

He is not surprised by who has composed the finale… or should he say, half of the finale. Vesuvia Vocanova from District Three, the redhead with so much spunk that he can almost picture the girl as his daughter if he were to have another kid. She's been a delight to watch, where even from the beginning, with hands blistered up by rope that she snatches up under Dill's horrible watch, as someone to hold stake in. He is not allowed to bet, but he does, and he doesn't regret the decision. It's brought him joy so far, as well as sums of cash that he can just funnel into Bella's cosmetic fund.

Her tenacity, her grit, her ferocity… it is everything he aspires to see take place on the silver screens that populate the Capitol corridors. People cannot take their eyes off of her, and frankly, neither can Cain. "If she does win," Cain writes a note to himself, before getting up from his chair, "I am going to ensure she is under my wing on the Gamemaker team. She confessed it herself, after all." A delightful aspiration, one that has Cain clapping his hands together, careful to not spill the glass of merlot clenched between his spindly fingers.

The shows she has put on, and the show he knows that is to come when she makes it face-to-face with the other half of the finale… Cain has a pair of sunglasses in his coat pocket – he doesn't care that he'll be witnessing this indoors, even if someone gives him weird stares; he can do what he wants, he's the vice president of Panem – to shield his eyes from the brilliance.

All of it'll come down on the shoulders of Poem Cavalli, from District 8. Her parents legacy is noted, even in the Capitol, of Anya and Dion, master artists in their craft.

"Yet," Cain cackles aloud, as he crushes another leaf in his hands, chills sliding down his spine at the crunch, crunch of the roots, "They birth a daughter who has less sewing talent than Bella does…" He shakes his head in dismay.

Everyone, including he and Emrick, mark the girl off as dead, but she has managed to surprise them every step of the way. When her district partner's head goes flying, in such a spectacular moment that Cain rewinds multiple times a day, hearing her blood curdling scream, he expects Poem to just lay there in catatonic shock, enough for Ramses Boskov to puncture her with the sword in his grip… yet she proves there's a little bit of a fight in her, and she gets away.

Enough to impress Catalus Drachma onto her side, and she hasn't been carried by any means. Cain can see her working as the survivor of the Games, if it came down to it, she looks to be someone who more moldable, clay that can be thrown into the kiln time and time again and come out as his new masterpiece. Though, he mulls to himself, as he steps over the bunch of discarded leaves at his feet, convincing her to join the Gamemaker staff would be a futile endeavor. She may be alive, but she's a preening peacock – "Takes one to know one," Cain admits proudly, same glass of wine in his hands, at Nyria's raised eyebrow – who is still drowning in her dreams.

The two ladies are similar… both absolved into pure fantasy, with video game designing and costuming being something completely unattainable in the Capitol, since whoever would win wouldn't necessarily just become free, but Cain knows he's getting too far ahead of himself.

He rounds the cresting hill, taking the same trodden path he's taken a thousand and one times, where he could take it even with a blindfold over his eyes. The Games have drawn him away from Kingsmark Cemetery, but even with his time being spent elsewhere, his mind has always been occupied on it, on the gravestone that Cain, moving in autopilot, waltzes over to directly.

Raziel Passionia, the gravestone reads, immaculate still, for Cain ensures that an avox crew cleans the gravestone every morning once the dew has settled on the grass, sparkles in the setting sun. Cain stops in front of the tomb, pressing his feet harder into the ground. He wonders, occasionally, if the dead can feel him trouncing around above their graves, and if the skeletons beneath him are trying to get his attention. It is silly, perhaps, but Cain knows it is better than thinking the alternative… thinking that they're just gone.

"No," Cain hisses at someone, he forgetting if it is his wife, or Emrick, or Nyria, or Lydia, or whoever that tries to comfort him above his loss, "He is not gone forever. A Passionia lingers. You may not," he spits in disdain at them, looking them over with disgust. "But not my son. Not my Raziel."

He'll linger, Cain, that is, when he dies.

"Hah," the vice president balks aloud, having to double over with laughter. "As if I'll ever die."

The secrets have been relatively hush-hush, and there's already two dead Avoxes marking the streets for their nosiness, but it is the project he gets Nyria on board with, the first success in its employment being the potted plant that sits on his desk in the Gamemaker Center. Mortality is just another failure of mankind… what if mankind could break beyond that barrier? They may not be able to cure cancer, but if someone could live forever?

Perhaps there'd be no need for the Games once he could bring everyone back.

But Cain Passionia doesn't like to share. He abhors it.

He'd share it with Raziel, but… the vice president casts his gaze down at the gravestone, crouching down low, careful not to tear the inseam of his pants. Cain sets the rose, in which he's plucked off all of the leaves, and ripped the thorns out with the bares of his teeth, mouth coated in a copper glisten, at the lower left lip of the tombstone.

"You'd be proud of me, Raziel," Cain says, sniffling, keeping his mouth still. He cannot cry. Even in the sanctity of Kingsmark, despite the legacy of those buried under his very feet, there can still be cameras watching him, waiting for the slipup. "I am advancing our society day by day, just like I said I would."

He can anticipate the words that his son would say, if he were sitting right next to him, as if Cain is just starting out his fatherhood, and they're looking at tadpoles in a small pond by their house. Cain pictures his son's gleaming smile, as if he had just had his hair ruffled by his father's hand, wrapping bony arms around a bony frame in a hug.

"I know," Cain continues, letting there be a pause in the conversation, to let Raziel respond. "I know you know that I'd never let you down again. Not after…" he pauses, unable to hold his gaze. There's just so much red coating his hands, coating the knife, and Bella is screaming, oh how she doesn't know how to do anything else other than scream, and Nathaniel Coin is looking at him horrified and-

A different face than that of his smiling son's breaks through, like sunshine bursting behind a cloud about to unleash a downpour. One covered in pastels, and the blood of innocents staining her dark hair.

Cain curls his upper lip into a sneer. "Someone is out there wanting to try and ruin what bond you and I had together," he reaches out and places his hand on the tombstone. "The one who promised that she'd stick by your side and keep you safe."

Lydia Wickervein, sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong, sticking her nose in where she's not wanted… Cain wants to have the woman dragged down to the cells, thrown into a corner she can't crawl out of, beat her bloody, break her ankles… the Head Peacekeeper is more trouble than she's worth, which makes Cain believe he's made a mistake.

He doesn't make mistakes; mistakes are not a word in his dictionary, for they simply do not exist. Yet, as he pauses, scratching off a flick of dirt from under his fingernails, vouching for Lydia all those years ago, before he rips off the yellow wallpaper in his bedroom and demands Bella carry a baby to full term, that is a mistake.

"She thinks once piece of paper is somehow enough to incriminate me on charges she doesn't even know," Cain shakes his head, clenching and unclenching his fists. People have died for the truth she wants to unveil, a truth she wouldn't understand what to do with even if she found it out. "The things I have done for her…" Cain grits his teeth, grinding them down harshly like pieces of flint being collided together to spark a fire. "The things I have done for this nation," he snarls, spit flying from his mouth, some of it landing on his hands. He doesn't wipe it away immediately, looking back at the gravestone, eyes softening at the glimpse of the corpse's name. "All to keep you safe, yet someone wants to tear it away from me. From us."

It is a blind spot that Cain doesn't see until it is too late. It is one he cannot anticipate, because he doesn't even count on Lydia's loyalty to be anything but unwavering. Yet, it is wavering in front of his very eyes, even when she is ordered to go out into the Capitol and fight the escapee who is terrorizing Capitolites and writing death threats on the walls… he sees the doubt staring back at him, the derision in her tone when she agrees to the mission. She's changed. Lydia Wickervein is no longer the attack dog he remembers enlisting as Head Peacekeeper, but a mutt who's bray is now worse than her bark or bite.

Like all bad dogs, dogs with failing eyesight, she needs to be put down. Cain isn't sure when, or if it is even up to him to make that decision, for she hasn't even done anything wrong to warrant his ire – that he knows of, of course, Cain has to consider – but he knows it is an inevitable decision.

"Enough about all that negativity, though!" Cain exclaims, clapping his hands together, wiping a tear away that slides down his cheeks. He will not have any sort of dampness on his dress pants, for it already took the cleaners too long to get the pants back to him this morning. His status should elevate him up to the top customer on their list, yet he has to "wait" for his dry cleaning like everyone else. "Finale of the Hunger Games is happening tonight!" the vice president leans into the gravestone, close enough where his hair brushes up against the white paint. "And it is going to be bloody and gorey and what I have wanted from the beginning," he says, sighing. Cain rubs his fingers down the grave. "I just wish you were here to witness history in the making."

Once it occurs, it will be historic. Many surprises up his sleeve, ones that not even Nyria or Emrick know about, ones that Cain cannot wait to show the audience, and ones that when they occur, Vesuvia and Poem may crumble to their knees and weep in total despair.

Cain leans forward, placing his head directly atop the gravestone this time. He may be inviting an ant to then crawl atop his head and bite him, but it is a risk he is willing to take. Bella cannot even come with him anymore to the cemetery, which he understands, but only if her fears were rooted in reality.

"I wish you were here to see this," Cain repeats, unable to stop the tears that fall and land on the rose down beneath his body. "I wish you here…" he sniffles, throat catching on a weakened sob. He better be alone, for the thought of someone else watching him collapse like this… they'd be buried right alongside his son. "This as all been for you," Cain says. "All of this, all of what I am setting in motion, all that I have planned to do, all that I have done…" he trails off, letting the tears slip, removing his hands and having them fall by his side. The sun starts its final descent down under the sky, signifying to Cain that his field trip has gone on for far too long. "Your sacrifice has not been in vain."

Cain sniffles, righting himself up, wiping the tears away. He gets to his feet first, before placing his hands in his pockets. It is the mantra he has to keep telling himself, or else he'll forget, and his slaughtering of children, and the destruction of Thirteen, and the downfall of Nathaniel Coin will have all been for naught if the mission statement of his actions is lost in thaw of thunderclouds and heavy downpour.

"I promise you this," Cain whispers, as if the dead around him would hear the words that he speaks. "I'll ensure your sacrifice has not been in vain, Raphael," Cain says, casting one last look at the tombstone, before turning around to hasten back to the Gamemaker Center.

The ending to the first year of the Hunger Games needs to be officiated, and he knows no one better than him to carry out this momentous task.

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Poem Cavalli: District 8 Female P.O.V (16)

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She feels like she is trudging knee deep through sand at this point, with how far she has run, with how much exertion Poem has pushed her body through. The girl has no idea how long she has been running, or for how long she's collapsed into a pile of unmoving flesh and fabric and tears. Poem simply moves when Camilla Rodriguez's cannon fires, Magnus Winterthorn atop her with a bloodied arrow in his hands, pieces of lung flying off of the golden tip in the breeze. She doesn't know what she is doing until Poem has flung herself down the obsidian beach, booted soles crunching the ground beneath her feet as she runs.

When she finally looks back, having been running for a good two minutes or so, sinking down the hill towards the oceanic waves, Poem realizes she cannot see the cornucopia plain anymore. She can't see Catalus anymore, and eerie to her, she can't hear a single sound besides the waves crashing onto the obsidian shore. No words, no raised voices, there's no singing clashes of steel, no one screaming in pain… and Poem has no idea what to do, even as she starts unlacing her boots and taking them off.

She could run back to the cornucopia, but Poem knows that the idea is foolish. What could she do? She saw the weapon in Magnus's hand, she saw how the blade slices through Camilla's legs in a way that has her scream so raw that her throat dies out from all the yelling. Catalus demands she runs, as is, so she does what she's told to do.

"He saved my life, and I couldn't even stay behind," she whispers, tugging at her sleeves. Poem switches hands with all of the bags in her hands, having Camilla's, her own, Catalus's, and, just to deviate from the plan a little bit, Magnus's. She didn't see one for District Three on the table, that being Vesuvia's, but she knows it'd be impossible for the girl to have gotten her own because the two of them had arrived onto the plain precisely at noon to waste zero time.

Poem keeps on running when the first cannon after Camilla's is fired, pushed back into action, the tears appearing again. She is sick of the crying, sick of all the movement, but she doesn't know what to do anymore. Poem wants to be independent, where no one can tell her what to do anymore, but with Niklaus gone, and Catalus fighting to his death back at the cornucopia… she's lost. It is as if she is staring at her very first design all over again, letting the fabric fall around her hands, swallowing her legs whole, because nothing is coming out right.

When another cannon, a few minutes after the first that isn't Camilla's, blasts out loud, Poem crouches down into the sand, tripping over herself. Her backpack and the bags of the other tributes from the feast spill out of her grasp, a frightful yelp escaping her mouth. She almost clamps a hand down over her face, pausing only at the realization that there is no one left, and no one would've been able to follow her all the way out down the beach. Poem takes time to check behind herself as she runs, and there are zero pursuers on her tail… as planned.

Catalus is the bigger enemy, the target everyone wants, and she can't disagree with him.

"He'll come," Poem tells herself, trying to smooth out the ratted frizzes of her hair that spring up and about near her ears. She misses the curling irons and the flatirons that give her crimped looks, where her face radiates all the beauty that no one is sure to miss. "Catalus will come and then we'll decide what to do from there. Four cannons means it makes us the final two…"

Running is selfish, and Poem knows it, yet she does it anyways. She would've died, fighting Magnus, trying to help Catalus bring down the enemy they were the most afraid of seeing. Camilla is tough enough for her, Poem hissing in pain as she runs her fingers over the open wound across her cheek, or along her arms and legs where minor scrapes and bruises dot her skin. A trained soldier… with a weapon that cauterizes the flesh it kills? Poem sees a losing battle and books it.

There's another element to it, Poem picturing Catalus being targeted first between the two of them, able to see it clear as day where her ally falls to his knees, face twisted in a pain unlike any other, as his guts are ripped open and spill out all over the grass. She cannot watch him die, as silly and foolish as it sounds.

"Please," Poem rolls her eyes, digging through her backpack for bandages to roll her arm up with, the bleeding starting to come to a stop, the pain ever so present, flaring up with each movement. "Not as foolish as me thinking this'd be a fashion contest."

If it is Catalus that will emerge out in the distance, Poem knows that she'll need to face the fear for a second time. As sweet as he is, as sweet as he claims her to be… neither of them are selfless, Poem able to read it in the lines that make up his face. The hieroglyphics that stare back at her crease and fold together into ones of sorrow, ones of pure love and adoration. She has to deny his advances, has to deny his desire for love and connection, because eventually, to escape her prison, she'd have to plunge a weapon into his chest, watch the blood spurt out everywhere, and witness the light leave his eyes, betrayal glaring back at her when she lowers his body into the sand.

Or the alternative, Poem shuddering at the thought. His sword cleaving into her hips, sawing her in half, Poem in so much pain where she'd be incapable of screaming out her agony. His face, the tears streaming down onto the sand, creating darkening pockets that surround her like mourners at her eventual funeral, until blackness consumes all but his stare… that is what she could end up with. Neither of them will immolate themselves for the other. Poem wants to live as much as he does.

She is too exhausted to get up and walk back, and if it is Catalus that she'll have to face, he'll make his way to her. Poem also knows that it has to have been only four cannons that have gone off. If it were five, she wouldn't be where she is, sitting in the sand, digging her heels down deep, dragging herself towards the water's edge.

She hates the beach that she's stopped at, where Niklaus chastises her for wanting to go into the water, for how she believes it is the end when the ground opens up underneath her feet, nearly swallowing her whole and into the dark. The closer she seems to get to the water, it is as if the beach magically elongates out in front of her very eyes, a spot she'll never be able to reach.

For supplies, she has the glasses that are her reward from bringing down Surt. Her knives are strapped to her side, the blades crusted over with dried blood that has bile appear in her throat each and every time she looks at them, aware of what they symbolize. Aware of how at least twenty-two other souls are dead for her to be where she is, where Nokomis Yanaba's family will never forgive her for the daughter she stole from them.

Poem picks up the bag meant for Camilla, dumping it onto the sand, the bag meaningless as it is tossed to the side. She clutches the item in her hands, frowning as her fingers rub over the smooth glass. A vial, but of what, she has no idea, the contents in the container looking to be that of grains of sand different from what she's sitting atop now. White powder, though Poem has never heard of white beaches in Eight. Four's beaches are of a darker color of sand, and the vial seems useless to her.

In Magnus's are two batteries, which has Poem raise her brow. Batteries? What… what would he need with batteries?

Catalus's is even stranger… a pen and paper. Poem sets them aside, next to her. If he shows up, as she's been running and waiting for what feels like hours, he'll let have them and decide what to do with the gift before they bring up the end. Her blood runs cold, heart beating in her chest, as she opens her pack.

She promptly laughs, not out of amusement or happiness, but in total disbelief.

"What the hell?" Poem exclaims, turning the bag upside down, digging her fingers through the fabric. It is empty, the contents dumped out into her palm. She looks at the shiny, glimmering pricked point of a sewing needle. "Really?" she turns her head up to the sky. "A fucking sewing needle?"

Do the Gamemakers want her to design clothes in the arena? How- there isn't any-

She shakes her head. Catalus would know what to do, he'd-

"But you left him," she tells herself, bile threatening to reappear as vomit onto the sand. "You left him and left him to the fate of death and despair even with Magnus right in front of you both," Poem lets the scorn ride over her skull, bleaching her scalp, bashing her head in. "What would Niklaus say, seeing that selfishness that you exhibited?"

"It doesn't matter what he'd say," Poem spits out, rubbing at her throat, setting the sewing needle aside, looking at it every few seconds as if it is just going to disappear from her sight. "He's dead and he can't help me, and soon Catalus will be too, if he isn't already…" she runs her hands through her hair, leaning forward.

Where did she go wrong? Were her ambitions too lofty? Too whimsical and fake and impossible to reach? Poem knows that she has to be wrong, for her parents were able to achieve their goals, able to get their names known, reputations built on years of trust and good faith and talent. Talent that Poem believes she possesses, feeling it tingle at the tips of her fingers, burrowing into her fingernails, flooding into her veins, the tingle rushing through her entire body.

She may never get an answer to that question.

Poem digs through her bag for another bandage, placing that in her pocket, just in case. She grabs her canteen, it being terribly light as she sits in the middle of the obsidian beach under the baking hot sun. Beads of sweat drip off of her forehead, throat parched, raspy gasps vibrating along her vocal cords with each drinking gulp.

The last droplet of water sizzles off of her tongue when the sky in front of her, expansive and blue, starts to darken. Poem looks at the arena clock, frowning, getting to her feet in alarm as it reads 8:59 PM.

"Impossible…" she exclaims, eyes widening. "It was… what?" It's impossible, completely and utterly impossible for it to be as late as it is, when leaving the cornucopia plain only sets the time at just quarter after noon, if even that. Poem totals the time running, by the aching of her bones, to be just under twenty or so minutes, and she hasn't been sitting on the beach for any longer than an hour with no other sign of life.

What time is it, truthfully? How long has she been sitting on the beach?

The Panemian seal fills the sky, a rock landing in Poem's gut. It's the anthem that she's being shown, by the way the trumpets sound, yet there isn't a voice congratulating her on the step she's taken.

"They'll let the silence do their dirty work now," Poem grumbles, keeping her body in a crouched position, alleviating the tension and pressure in her knees. Hours spent in her workshop, pouring over designs and ideas that go nowhere except into dimly lit tunnels that drop off into dead-end caverns do not prepare her for what she's been experiencing, Poem feeling her energy get sapped away from her with every breath she takes. The trumpet sound starts to fade, and the logo as well, which can mean only one thing.

The faces that'll follow, the ghosts that'll haunt her every movement.

"No…" she whispers, hands clutching at her hair, tugging down the sides of her face. "Anyone but… no!" Poem's voice breaks off into a scream.

Catalus Drachma's face fills the sky, his coy smile brightly lit with the ever darkening backdrop. Poem sinks to her knees in the sand, tears streaming down her face. No. It can't be. "No!" Poem yells at the top of her lungs, she kneeling down, head digging into the sand. "I'm sorry," she gasps, croaking, unable to catch her breath. "I completely failed you. Catalus, forgive me," she lifts her head up, tears streaming down her face.

Everyone in the world must hate her, the ditzy girl who abandons her ally to torment and death in the very hour where she is needed the most. A time when someone actually needs her, and she can't even do that. No one in Eight would be able to look her in the eyes any longer, and Poem doesn't blame them.

"I'm so sorry…" she repeats, fingers running lightly over her lips, carrying trails of saliva with them as she lifts her hand away from her face.

Catalus's grinning face is replaced by another, one filled with more teeth, fangs rather, as Poem sees Magnus Winterthorn take up the blue background. Good riddance, she snorts, with his picture hanging in the sky. The two probably took each other out, Poem curling her knees closer to her chest at the thought. From the stories Catalus shared with her about him, the boy sounds honorable, he sounds like he'd be fun to be around, and then she witnesses the soldier, with a look of pure murder on his face, slaughter someone without hesitation.

"So did you," she reminds herself, unable to even retort out loud with a rebuttal. "Hypocrite, Cavalli. You're a complete hypocrite, Poem. Go run out into the surf and let the tide carry you away."

Porscha Watanabe's face replaces Magnus's, and Poem's heart begins to beat again. She realizes who is skipped, her fear swamping over the sadness at seeing the girl from Six shine in the sky. The girl helped bring down the fire god, some sort of dream drawing her close to the alliance, to be a wishful ally, yet Poem is incapable of focusing on that. Her fatal flaw, as what her parents tell her, over ham sandwiches with too much mayo spilling out of the sides and onto the plate. A lack of focus.

Camilla Rodriguez is the last one to show, as Poem expects, unable to keep her gaze centered on the anthem anymore, the sky darkening at a rapid rate even as the anthem draws on. Catalus, Magnus, Porscha, Camilla… four cannons. Her ally – her best friend, Poem has to correct herself – and her potential nemesis, a potential friend, and her latest futile attempt at redemption… all dead.

"Fuck me," Poem swears, rubbing at her brow. "I'd have preferred Magnus…" she mutters.

Vesuvia Vocanova from Three… that is who is standing in her way between an early grave or her parents' loving arms. The last person Poem wishes to see.

The violence in the girl, simply exhibiting off of her body in crimson waves that pulsate off of the girl's arm. The vileness that she spews, Poem hearing Vesuvia prattle on and on in the training center on all the ways a body can be maimed and tortured to become unrecognizable... a type of darkness that Poem can see stewing in her heart, a similar type of death that Poem sees in the tired faces of the Peacekeepers that request the help of her parents in designing something personal.

Poem has the thought still at the forefront of her mind, it impossible to wipe clean no matter how hard she tries. She could furrow her brow so tight it'd pop a blood vessel and cause onset early brain damage, and it is not enough to get the sight replaced by something else.

She is curled up on her plate during the bloodbath, only moving when Niklaus rushes over to her, with his gentle hands and his soft smiles and the tortured look in his eyes. They're perched on top of the hill, watching the chaos happen down below, and Poem sees it.

Dill Waylon is digging through a box, hands pulling out all sorts of supplies that are being tossed to the side. She has no idea what he is looking for, for it doesn't seem to be food or water. There's the thick bundle of rope, one that Poem almost tells Niklaus to rush out and grab, as he's scanning the cornucopia for an opportunity.

Poem sees Vesuvia, hair bright and flaming red in the sun, creeping up behind Dill, ambling over towards the bundle of rope ever so slowly, and her mind only connects the dots too late. The warning cry is leaving her lips too late as well, one that makes Niklaus jump out of his skin, for Poem sees Vesuvia tighten a noose around Dill's throat, tugging the boy back, and the life leaves his eyes.

When Dill's head slumps forward, Vesuvia looks out along the plain, Poem almost tugging Niklaus around in front of her to stay hidden, but it is not enough. The two girls make eye contact with one another, the look of glee and murder and happiness and cruelty in Vesuvia's stare.

She saw something she isn't supposed to, something that Vesuvia allows her to see, and the girl doesn't give chase, since Diana Kratovska is a gleaming prize dripping with honey and gold near her.

Poem cannot forget that moment, just like how she cannot forget watching Niklaus's head get separated from her shoulders. Just like how she'll never see Nokomis in any other way besides as a corpse at her feet, her knife in the girl's neck, eyes glassy, mouth open in a scream that'll never be released…

How Catalus will now no longer be anything more than the shimmering blue face in an ever darkening sky.

Poem rubs at the back of her head, looking around her surroundings. She has some knives… and this stupid sewing needle. Nothing to bring down the murderous prison convict who takes pleasure in her killing. Nothing to make the statement for survival that Poem needs.

"I need more time," Poem hisses to herself, stomping her feet.

"More time to do what, Poem?" comes a feminine voice behind her. "More time to think on how you'll die?"

Poem lifts her head up, swallowing down the building fear that churns in her stomach. She turns, only moving in incremental degrees, tiny motions that only have her hips turned. The girl from Eight makes eye contact with the pale face of Vesuvia Vocanova, the other girl just a few yards away from her on the obsidian beach.

The girl is completely covered in blood, dripping in it from head to toe, and Poem knows that what she is looking at will be the death of her, that she is looking in the face of the devil incarnate, where hell is overflowing, and all of the devils have crawled out of their prisons to be in her company instead.

Poem lifts her head in defiance, unsheathing the knife at her belt, pocketing the sewing needle. The Capitol gave it to her for a reason, even if it is just humiliation at their expense.

She has faced countless rejections from suitors that come from all over Panem to look at her designs. Her own parents do not hug her the way they should. She watches her lover die in front of her very eyes. She is told, in front of the entire nation, that her dreams will never come true, that she isn't special.

What could this red-headed devil do to her that the rest of her life hasn't already been able to do?

"Hello, Vesuvia," Poem greets, and then, even if it is completely false, bravado causing her jaw to vibrate. "I've been waiting for you."

There is no one here to defend her now, nowhere for her to run.

It is Poem Cavalli against the world, and she'll rush into it head-on.

---

Vesuvia Vocanova: District 3 Female P.O.V (18)

---

If it were any other time perhaps, when it wasn't the end of her time in the arena, the rapidly setting sun would cause alarm to rise in Vesuvia's veins. Instead, as she looks around at the darkening sky, bands of black and blue stretching over the brightly lit clouded backdrop of the arena dome, elation fills her beating heart. "It is time," she tells herself, cracking a smile. "Time for the end of the world. Time for mine to begin," Vesuvia shakes her head, letting her hair, which has started to grow longer than her usual short bob in the back, dance against her shoulder blades.

She wipes away some of the blood off of her face, spitting onto her hand to wipe at her eyebrows and under her jaw. Vesuvia looks down at the body of Catalus Drachma, head caved in, freshly spilled copper leaking out of his open trauma, staining that so perfect tanned face of his. She decides that it'd be too morbid, even for the Capitol audience and all of the others around Panem watching, faces glued to the television sets, their faces so close that the static bearing into their eyes would cause brain cancer, that kissing Catalus on the cheek would be going too far. Time and place, and if she had been able to convince the golden boy from One to join her side back when this journey in the arena began, perhaps she would've done that avenue instead of Jasper Overheart.

The boy has his purposes, of course, Vesuvia mulls over. She places her bloodied knives back in their sheaths on her hips, going down to roll Catalus's body over. There are plenty of good supplies on him, supplies that'd go to waste if the Capitol hovercrafts were to just come and pluck his body out of the sky. It is the first rule in her video games that she comes up with, when there are dead enemies down in front of her player's avatar… they must be looted.

She sees the entire fight between he and Magnus from her hiding spot. She sees all of the goodies that the two boys pull from their utility belts, mouth watering at the very sights that are out in front of her. Vesuvia makes sure to heft the silver sword with the golden hilt and the red ruby in the center of it for her own keeping, flinging that around her shoulder, hitting against the knife centered on her left hip. His grappling claw, hooked at his pants, it might as well be hers too.

Vesuvia looks over at Magnus's corpse, frowning. Perhaps all of this is overkill for someone from District Eight, where she saw Poem Cavalli not really be capable of getting herself out of a paper bag, but she cannot ever be too certain in her own abilities. Not that Vesuvia has ever doubted herself on anything she's done, but regardless… she rolls the boy from Two over, seeing that he's empty of supplies.

"Useless," she mutters, shaking her head, letting his dead body flop back onto the grass. Out of the corner of her eye, with the rapidly setting sun, a glint of gold catches her eyes. "Now this, however…" Vesuvia drawls out the sentence, leaning down. Her hands brush up against the cool metal of Magnus's quiver full of arrows, arrows ripe for the taking. A few of them are even bloodstained, a rush of life flushing to Vesuvia's head. The world spins just a little bit as Vesuvia places the quiver of arrows on her shoulder.

"Let's see Poem beat that!" she cackles, dusting her hands off. She saw her, the frightened little girl who abandoned her allies – Vesuvia knows that she isn't exactly one to talk on the subject of loyalty, but she wants to discuss it anyways – race off down towards the beach made of obsidian, the land always sparkling in the sunlight.

She and Jasper debated once upon a time on camping out there, as if they were on a date sharing a dinner of quail and rotten lizards, but the moment Vesuvia thinks of the tender moment, Jasper decides to get struck by Surt and fall into a state of unconsciousness, her plan flying out of the window.

Vesuvia hooks her weapons to her body, grabbing her bag from the feast out of her hiding spot, and heads off in the direction where Poem Cavalli, the velveteen queen, raced off to. "Open spaces," Vesuvia says, unsure who she is speaking to, as the statement doesn't sound like what she'd be coaching herself on. "Not a game of cat and mouse, thankfully."

"But I thought you liked games?" a voice that sounds eerily like Jasper's says, sliding over her shoulders, pooling at the space of her spine like ice cubes that some brat who gets blinded in both eyes would do.

"Shut up," Vesuvia growls to herself. "You're dead."

If Jasper were somehow still with her, though she believes that to be an impossibility lower than that of ever seeing a blue moon in her lifetime for Magnus and Catalus together could've skewered her ally into a kabob of flesh and piss and fear, this is where she would've planted a blade into his back.

He wouldn't have been strong enough for this, foolish enough to think Poem is somehow still innocent and undeserving of death.

"If anyone is underserving of death," Vesuvia remembers telling him, after they finished another night of moonlit romance with swollen lips and tracing star shapes on exposed hips, "It's me. I don't deserve to die."

Vesuvia recalls that Jasper simply kissed her again, rather than assuaging her faces.

She's glad he's dead, not another nuisance to stop her on her mission.

When she gets out of the arena, the first thing is doing is not going and visiting his grave, a harsh bark of laughter rising in her throat at the possibility of her selfishness transforming into selflessness. A Vocanova is anything if not self-serving, which is how Vesuvia plans on getting out of the arena alive.

Her first goal, when she's home, is to start a video game company, opening her market to more than just the fools who know how to connect blue wires together… but in the hands of Capitolites. Capitolites whose wallets would make her Uncle Kenny's look like charity donations night after night.

Just one more thing in her way.

That's not all Vesuvia knows she wants to do, the thought coming to her in the dark of the cornucopia while the cicadas chirp, and the crickets join in, her back pressed up against the cool metallic sides that she slams Catalus's head into just twenty-four hours earlier.

She is going to do it; she knows it'll happen. Joining the Gamemaker team, putting her talents more to than just digital code. She can picture the Head Gamemaker, Cain, in all of his fiendish handsomeness – "Jasper could never rock black like he would," Vesuvia giggles to herself – would give a wolfish grin and hire her on the spot. Why wouldn't they want someone as cruel as her to lead the march?

Vesuvia stills in her walk, the cornucopia far behind her now, the hovercraft that has gone to pick up the bodies of Camilla Rodriguez, Magnus Winterthorn, and Catalus Drachma vanishing into the clouds, the only sign that there had been anything lingering being the two ghostly red beams of light sticking on the end of the hovercraft's tail.

She's about to make it halfway down the obsidian beach, with the only noise being the stilled quiet, the shakiness of her breath, and the crashing ocean waves to her left without ever… Vesuvia shakes her head, frowning.

"If the cameras weren't on, I'd slap myself," she grumbles, reaching into her pocket for her bag from the feast. "I'm getting too ahead of myself. Too excited, and it's gonna cost me the win…" Vesuvia swears, rolling her eyes. Her uncle tells her that there are breathing exercises she can do when she gets too ahead of herself, but Vesuvia knows those would be complete banal bullshit, for a Vocanova never gets stressed, and they do not get ahead of themselves.

Vesuvia unlaces the black leathery knot that keeps her bag shut, turning it upside down. A small vial of dark green liquid, almost like aloe vera if it were a few shades more in the black olive direction, falls into her open palm. Holding it up to the sky, towards the tiny semblances of light that she has in front of her, the vial is the exact same size as the one that Cole gives her with the sleeping aid that tastes like honey.

The difference on this vial and the other one, despite the fact that the tubing is plastic rather than glass, is the skull and crossbones plastered on it on either side, a cruel grin starting to spread on Vesuvia's face.

"They gave me poison!" she cackles, tilting her head back and laughing. "Poison!" Vesuvia turns around, holding her hands up towards the sky, moving in a circular motion so the cameras catch her in their entirety. "If it is a show you want, ladies and gentlemen of the Capitol, it is a show you will get!" she exclaims.

Poem Cavalli is screwed, Vesuvia has no other thought in her head beyond that.

As she takes another few yards or so down the beachline, which rises up and falls, matching the fiery landscape to her right, the soil familiar enough that she could go and take a nap and waste away days and days and days of time, Vesuvia comes to a stop, all of the weapons on her body clinking together as their inertia hits a halt.

There the girl is, out in the distance, pacing back and forth, hands making wringing motions to herself. Prey unbeknownst to the dangers that lurk on the horizon. Vesuvia feels a creeping thought on the back of her skull, that all of this is coming too easily for her, but a Vocanova doesn't know struggle.

"We don't quit…" Vesuvia tells herself, lowly, steeling her arms by her side, curling her hands into fists.

As she approaches, she hears it, the panic, the reverb rising in Poem's throat when the statement of, "I need more time."

Vesuvia pauses again, her feet covered in sand, her body sweating and stinking, and the words come free before she can help herself. "More time to do what, Poem?" she asks. The girl from Eight freezes, turning around, a look of utter fright on her features. "More time to think on how you'll die?"

The girl lifts her head up, mirroring some sort of defiance, and Vesuvia can only laugh. Jasper laughed in the face of death plenty of times, and she puts him six feet under where he belongs. This uppity brat, with more money and luxury and privilege than Vesuvia will ever know… she does not have the right to even emote defiance, let alone confidence of any kind.

"Hello, Vesuvia," Poem greets her, she seeing how the girl's body is downright trembling. "I've been waiting for you."

"Sure you have," Vesuvia bites back, crossing her arms. She looks at her quickly, at the injuries she's sustained, which do not look to be anything majorly debilitating, Vesuvia frowning at the sight. There's a cut across her cheek, but Vesuvia knows it is not enough; they'll be on an even playing field here. "I will say, you weren't the enemy I was expecting," she clucks her tongue in her mouth. "I'd have much preferred to face off against Magnus, but your little ally did that for me," Vesuvia sets her mouth into a hard line. "No matter. You'll do just as nicely."

Poem shifts her hands on her hips so they're down by her sides instead, Vesuvia seeing the glittering handles of two silver knives by her side… as if those are going to be enough to stop her.

The girl looks her over as well, disgust just as evident bridging along her brow.

"You kill Catalus, or Magnus?"

Vesuvia blinks, taking a step back. That is not a question she expects, truthfully. What would lying to the girl do for her? She'd be dying, anyways… would the pain cause her to fight worse or cause the girl to fight with an invigoration unlike what she's ever seen?

Screw it, Vesuvia only lives once. A Vocanova does not let life slip through their fingers.

"Me," she proclaims proudly, motioning her hands down her body. Though her face is clean of his blood, it says nothing for her arms, or for her tribute uniform, or even the tiny part of skin showing through a cut in her pants. "I caved his head in against the cornucopia," Vesuvia says, leaning forward, absorbing the pleasure of seeing horror reflected back at her from Poem's widening eyes. "And how he screamed like a little bitch, too, when he started to die."

If the girl has any brains in her at all – "Clearly not," Vesuvia derides that train of thought with a quick shake of her head, "For she wouldn't have volunteered if that were the case."

"You-" Poem inhales, nostrils flaring, pure rage flowing along the words, but Vesuvia shrugs it off. "You monster."

"I've been called worse," Vesuvia flings the words aside. Hardly an insult, where every Peacekeeper that passes by her jail cell with a baton and bravado that is far larger than the size of their packages tell her that every night, as if their words were going to leave barbed wounds in her armadillo shell. "I made sure to take souvenirs though, before I ventured down here," she says, unclipping the grappling claw from her belt, and then, replacing the knives in her hands with the silver sword.

Poem swallows at the sight of both of Catalus's items in Vesuvia's possession, the girl from Three smiling again at the very fear that she can smell. It is a scent of rotten cabbage and sweatshops, the physical stink of man, mildew… blood.

"Those were not for you to take, you bitch!" Poem yells at her.

"Who says you're in charge of me, you utter moron?" Vesuvia blasts back, advancing a step forward in her direction.

"You are an arrogant piece of shit!" the girl from Eight returns, though she doesn't move in her spot, just bubbling rage simmering off of her shoulders.

Oh, how the pot calls the kettle black, an arrogant piece of shit, if Vesuvia ever knew one. She knows how to land them where it hurts. "And you are a waste of space!" Vesuvia hollers, jabbing a finger in her direction. Poem's jaw falls open, lower lip quivering as the words bombard into her chest. "You should be dead, Cavalli!"

By all accounts, which makes Vesuvia wonder sometimes if she is in a dream, the girl's face should've shone in the sky long ago. She should've been staring at Poem Cavalli's portrait with a blue 8 next to her name by the second evening of the Games, not on the eleventh evening where it is just her left.

Poem takes a step back, tears glinting in her eyes, a similar sparkle falling onto her face.

It is not enough to make Vesuvia feel pity. She's heard those same accusations, judges and philosophers that visit her cell, accompanied by those same Peacekeepers that than succumb to her wiles and good looks just hours later.

Vesuvia sheaths the sword, gripping onto one of her knives instead. In her pocket, weighted by the vial of poison in the left, and in the right, is the iron bar, the sponsor gift that Cole gave her and Jasper just a few days in the arena. All of this, against a brat who volunteers out of pure idiocy.

"I debated, Poem, for a second after Catalus's cannon fired, that I might lose. If you were to just attack me from the shadows," Vesuvia says, her tongue thick, as if she had recently discovered a peanut allergy hidden in her family tree. A Vocanova does not admit their shortcomings. A Vocanova does not have any shortcomings. "But then I realized you're just as fragile and weak as the rest," she shakes her head. "I have to kill you, and I don't mind that I have to, for my district needs me," Vesuvia points down to the shore, past the water, past the dome. "I'm going to design video games that'll have my name on every billboard."

Poem's look of hurt flickers into one of amusement, for a split second, but Vesuvia sees it. She is going to carve her name into the first billboard… Poem Cavalli's head. "I'm still going to design clothes for the First Lady."

"She may like your hair as a wig," Vesuvia interjects, looking up and down at her competition. The girl is beautiful, a flawlessness that Vesuvia didn't know anyone that wasn't in her family could share, and she's always admired her hair. "Because that's the only part that'll fit her."

"No one will play your videogames, Vesuvia," Poem tells her, the girl's hands returning to the weapons at her side.

If there were ever a lie uttered into the universe, it'd be that.

She shakes her head, sick of this. Sick of all of these games that are being paraded around in front of her, when eleven days ago, she should've just been granted the crown then, for all of this has been nothing more than a waste of time.

"I'm in a giving mood today, Poem," she tells her, hands resting similarly on her knives. "You want to die today on your feet, or die on your back?" Vesuvia raises an eyebrow.

The girl better have grown some semblance of brains in the last eleven days, or all of this pageantry and foolishness would've been for nothing, just more time wasted.

Poem gives a telling smile, cocking her head to the side some. "Oh, Vesuvia, I should've asked you that question instead."

"Oh?" Vesuvia almost bursts out into laughter again. "And why would that be?"

"I'm not the one who'll be dying today," the girl from Eight declares, wrenching out one of the knives sheathed to her hip.

So Poem Cavalli has learned nothing, after all, Vesuvia decides morosely, glee sliding in between the gaps.

Let the Games begin, then.

Poem Cavalli screams once, a battle cry from down in her gut, launching herself forward in the sand.

Vesuvia Vocanova reaches for her weapons, drawing them out as well. En garde, then.

Poem reaches Vesuvia first, the girl from Three holding her knives up to parry the strike. A shaking reverb travels up Vesuvia's arm, rattling her bone to the core, but not enough to make her drop the blades. She grits her teeth together, pushing back, making Poem throw her arms wide. Vesuvia thrusts out with her left, Poem blocking with her right, the actions being mirrored when she tries switching hands.

"You're gonna regret this!" Vesuvia spits out, ducking under Poem's next swipe which is aimed for her neck.

"Am I?" Poem taunts, Vesuvia making the girl swallow her words as she gets a quick slice atop her left hand. The blade falls from Poem's grasp, Vesuvia stamping her boot atop the handle as Poem dares to reach for it.

"Try," she invites her competitor, cocking her a smile. "I dare you."

She punts Poem in the chin with her knee, sending the girl flying. Poem still has the other knife in her hand as she goes spiraling into the dirt, Vesuvia swapping her knives for Catalus's sword. Something with reach would be better, and she knows deep down it is going to hurt worse when the girl dies by her ally's weapon being what kills her.

Vesuvia swings a strike for Poem's shoulders, she rolling out of the way just in time, but not before the blade catches onto one of her braids. When the girl from Eight gets to her feet, brandishing the singular knife in her grip, only one braid remains, the other buried in the sand. Vesuvia darts to the left with a strike, Poem sidestepping it, jabbing out with her knife. She overcompensates the rush, the trajectory aimed for Vesuvia's side, instead scraping up underneath her elbow.

Vesuvia cries out in pain, biting her tongue down with her teeth, scarlet flooding out of the cut and onto the sand. She cannot tell what is the beach's ground beneath her feet, or the blood spilling out of her body. She retaliates by slashing across Poem's other hand, the girl bent over in the dirt at the second knife that she had dropped.

"You know, I bet you and Catalus got freaky with this thing!" Vesuvia barks at her, hoisting the weapon to slam it into Poem's back.

Poem turns around, holding both knives up in her hands, the sword connecting with the blades with a clash of sparks, the girl from Eight gritting her teeth together. "You spend a lot of time wondering whether or not Catalus and I were fucking?" she taunts, tilting her head to the side. "Or were you too busy being Jasper's bitch?"

"If anyone was the bitch in our relationship, it was him!" Vesuvia's face contorts into a scowl, she swapping hands on the sword to slam the hilt of the weapon into Poem's face.

The girl's cry of pain is smothered by the sand, face digging into the dirt. Vesuvia leans down, grabbing the back of her head, pressing her face into the beach. Dying by dirt inhalation is a death she's never tried before, but if it ends up being what does her in, she very will start employing its usefulness by the dozens.

Vesuvia shifts her weight so she's pinning Poem into the earth, pressing harder and harder, Poem's cries getting fainter and weaker with each passing second. The girl will die, the trumpets will sound, and Vesuvia will go on home to District Three as if she had never left.

Poem reaches out wildly in the sand, one hand encircling around the hilt of a knife, the other grabbing a fistful of dirt. She thrashes wildly under Vesuvia's grip, the ball of dust crashing into the girl's face. Vesuvia gasps in surprise, batting away flecks of sand from her eyes and hair, blinking in time for Poem to launch onto her instead. She holds back a cut to the neck, vaulting Poem off of her, growling and snarling.

She'll make the girl die for every day she's been forced to spend in this arena. Eleven cuts to the arms and legs for the mornings, and cuts to the face and the throat for every night, every sinking sun coated in spilt blood to be full and engorged with crimson on its twelfth rise. Vesuvia sits up, blinking out the bits of sand in her eyes, as Poem scrambles to her feet, the girl racing over to her backpack.

"What's that going to do?" Vesuvia calls out, getting to her feet.

She unclips Catalus's grappling claw from her belt, thumbing the button, jamming a finger down onto it time and time again. The claw shoots out, Poem crying out in fright as she falls back, the claw a few inches away from ensnaring itself around her throat. It worked for Catalus with Magnus, and Vesuvia has never claimed that every idea from her head is original. A Vocanova is always original, and they're also masters of plagiarism.

Vesuvia grits her teeth, trying again. The claw flies out, this time towards Poem's left arm poking out around the side. Poem flits the hand back, a yelp tearing from her lips, as the claw grapples onto a strap of the backpack instead. No matter, as Vesuvia wrenches the bag back in her direction, leaving Poem completely exposed.

The bag smashes into Vesuvia's chest at full force, causing her to grunt in surprise, holding out her hands to try and catch the bag before it hits her. The force gets her to lower her arms, the sword in her right hand going straight into her boot, stabbing her in the foot. Vesuvia yells, a burst of white stars dancing atop her line of sight, she ripping the blade out of the center of her foot. A gush of warm blood pours out of the wound, pooling at the tip of her shoe, near the lip.

Vesuvia flings the discarded backpack to the side, and by the time she's lifted her head, Poem is rushing down the beach at her, a blur of dark fabric and dark hair, and an expression that is bright red. Poem collides into Vesuvia, the girls both falling back onto the ground.

"I thought you never made mistakes!" Poem taunts her again, hands scrabbling for any tangible piece of skin.

The girl from Three snarls at her, trying to bite her on the ear, as it is the closest body part near her. A Vocanova never makes mistakes… wait, Vesuvia pauses, even in mid-thrashing. Has she been speaking her familial lines aloud? The distraction gets Poem's fingers, turned into clawed talons, slicing down her cheek, cutting her open just at her jaw. Vesuvia growls, hands surging out to grab the lapels of the other girl's uniform, flinging her over so she's atop Poem instead.

"The only mistake I am ever going to make," Vesuvia gets out, between breaths, hands encircling around Poem's throat, "Is that I didn't kill you in five seconds flat!" She begins to squeeze, thumbs indenting up just underneath the other girl's jaw, her eyes going wide, Poem grappling onto anything again, hands slick with blood latching onto her elbows, but there's too much blood for anything tangible.

Vesuvia lifts her head up higher, nostrils flaring, as she begins to press harder. She's only choked someone else out before, in the prison yard, over a game of basketball, and a point that is rightfully hers no matter what anyone says! Poem's tugging motions start to get weaker, until the girl digs her head back into the side, spitting a glob of phlegm and blood onto Vesuvia's face.

It collides directly onto Vesuvia's nose, part of it sliding off and onto her lips, causing Vesuvia to dry heave, bile threatening to appear from her throat. She lets go off Poem's throat, but the girl doesn't stop to catch a breath like others would… her fists pummel into Vesuvia's head, she swaying over into the sand, hands wiping at the bodily fluids leaking down her face. Poem tries scrambling to her feet, tripping once with her heels digging into the sand.

"Oh, no you fucking don't!" Vesuvia snarls, reaching out for the only other braid left in Poem's head. Her hands encircle the piece of hair, she exerting all of her strength to fling the girl to the ground. Poem collides onto the sand hard, evident by the cry of pain that sends birds into the sky from nearby trees.

Vesuvia gets into a crouched position, maintaining a death grip on the girl's braid, tugging, tugging, tugging. She's never heard a more beautiful sound than that of Poem Cavalli being in pain. "You know what," she hisses, looking back at Poem, who is flailing her arms around like a drowning sailor, "Let me have the arena finish you off!"

She starts taking steps towards the water, the accompanying trill of waves hitting the shore acting as a background to the cries of both ladies that bombard the sandy shores. She'll drown Poem in the oceanic blue, the fate she wishes to instill in Diana, but as per Magnus's words, that opportunity is also stolen from her. She will not have this stolen from her.

"I will not have this stolen from me!" Vesuvia howls again, looking down at Poem, right before the pain starts.

The girl from Eight's hands are gripping, just barely, onto Catalus's sword, she plunging the sword up, it slicing across Vesuvia's right elbow. She grits her teeth in pain, more blood spilling out of the wound, but it is enough of a distraction for Poem to push Vesuvia onto the ground, the girl falling back, reaching for that second braid, but still, not enough…

"Sorry, looks like it was stolen from you!" Poem yells back at her, as she races off up towards the shore.

Vesuvia slams her fists into the sand, dragging herself back up to her feet. She has always been good at patiently waiting, but now… the charade is getting old, the game is dragging itself out. Poem rushes right on by Catalus's sword, it discarded in the sand near her, Vesuvia picking up the blade, sheathing it for the knives on her belt. Her shoulder aches from landing on the ground time after time, hitting the quiver full of arrows, they rattling in their holdings as Vesuvia runs.

Poem is back at the top of the shoreline, the torn open backpack in her hands again, as she fishes inside for something. As Vesuvia is just a few yards away from her, Poem stands upright, a pair of glasses on her face that, if they are considered to be a fashion statement, Vesuvia is going to call them hideous.

The girl from Eight flings the backpack forward again, it full with every item that Poem could find, Vesuvia racing forward. The backpack hits the ground before Vesuvia can reach it, a faint cry ripping through her throat as the ground in front of her opens up, a sinkhole tearing away yards of the beach in front of her. Poem keeps on backing up, ripping the glasses off of her face, and… oh, the humanity.

"Coward!" Vesuvia screams at the top of her lungs, screaming with all of her might at the fleeing sight of Poem's singular braid and the back of her head through the scorched landscape. "What are you? A one trick pony?" No matter, no matter… a Vocanova is always the early bird for the late worm. "If it's a chase she wants, it's a chase she'll get."

Vesuvia flings the grappling claw to the side, abandoning it in the sand, leaping as far as she can over the hole. Though she has no idea what is beneath her feet, every second she dawdles, Poem gets away like a blinking mirage in the distance.

She draws out both knives again, the cylindrical items in her pocket making their presence known over the din of her breath as they collide with one another with each step that Vesuvia takes. The quiver full of arrows rattles as well, but Vesuvia heeds the distractions no mind, the sound of the obsidian shore fainter and fainter as she runs.

Poem leads Vesuvia through the scorched landscape, vaulting over rocks, ducking under trees, the girl from Three keeping her vision dead set on the prey in front of her. Prey that is putting up a remarkable fight, she must admit. A Vocanova does not ever admit someone is putting up a remarkable fight.

The border of the fishing village begins to blend through the scorched earth beneath Vesuvia's feet, burnt trees melding into pine trees with a greenish glow around the base of the tree. In the distance, a spot that Vesuvia never entertains as a camp, is the tall tower that looms over the border of the arena.

"As if that place is going to save her…" she tells herself, shaking her head. Eleven days in the arena, and Poem Cavalli has learned nothing.

The girl is in front of her, slowing down in her haste, while Vesuvia's body is pumping hot iron through her veins. She is about to collide with her, nearly bowling into the girl's back, the two tributes stopped in a clearing where all the trees have been cut down, the grass crunching underneath their boots like dried up leaves, when a howl ripples through the air.

Vesuvia knows that denying the truth will make her look weak on camera… the howl turns her blood to rivers of ice, both girls looking wildly into the dark for the source of the noise.

"What the hell?" Poem questions, brow furrowed, Vesuvia wondering why she's paused, why she isn't piercing the girl's side ruby red with a steel blade, when the girl from Eight unleashes a bloodcurdling scream, flinging herself forward.

Out of the corner of Vesuvia's eye, a black, almost unidentifiable mass, lunges over Poem's body. The blob of indistinguishable form crashes into the ground behind them, its only discerning feature being that the form looks to be that of a wolf, beady eyes glowing a haunting teal color peering out from the darkness.

"What…?" Vesuvia has to question as well, furrowing her brow together. "We were told all the gods of the arena were dead!" she exclaims, as Poem is scrambling to her feet.

The shadow in the form of a wolf – "Fenrir," Vesuvia says, knowing the answer. Fenrir, the wolf. Valravn, the hell hawk. With them, there'd be a third… Surt. "You're Fenrir," – snarls, though in its maw, there is nothing but shadow. It leaps for Poem again, the girl from Eight barely dodging out of the way in time for its open jaw of clashing teeth.

Vesuvia twirls on her left, a screech that is unlike a wolf's howl piercing through the air as well, and through the trees, though the darkness is tricking her as the seconds tick, she sees it. A hell spawn, half man, half… bird, leaping off of a tree, curved scimitars in the shadow's grasp, a plume of dust rushing towards her when the creature lands.

"Come on!" Vesuvia screams at it. "I am sick of your games, Gamemakers!" Then, staring down the creature of shadows that is Valravn, as she sees its wingspan glitter in the navy blue bands above their heads, she clenches onto her knives harder than before. "Well come on then, Valravn! Show me what you got!"

The hell hawk screeches at her, flinging its body at her, Vesuvia going into a dive. She scrapes her knees into the dirt, every wound in her body groaning in protest, she seeing out of the corner of her vision that Poem is still evading the wolf.

She witnesses it bite into Poem's shoulder, the girl titling her head back with a scream, falling into the dirt, blood spurting in the air. Volcanic rage rushes through Vesuvia's body, an anguished roar rivaling that of Fenrir or Valravn's own noises.

"She is not yours to steal! Poem is my kill, motherfucker!" Vesuvia flings one of her blades into the shadow creature's form, the silver knife slicing directly through the creature's eyes, embedding into a tree on the opposite side.

A rush of adrenaline flows over her head as Fenrir's form seems to collapse into nothingness, black shadows fizzling out in smoky waves over Poem's body, and the surrounding soil. As Vesuvia decides to advance towards the knife, she's brought down to a knee by a rising bout of pain.

She yells again, hands going to her right knee, the skin returning a pasty crimson down her pale arm. Her glare finds that of Valravn's shadowy form, the hell hawk roaring at her, one of its scimitars a sparkling cardinal under the moonlit horizon.

No one harms her. Surt didn't harm her, and this beast, this creation, she is told that died just a few days into the games, will not hurt her either.

"But it did!" a voice that is not her own tells her, Vesuvia fighting through the pain, reaching into the quiver of arrows strapped over her shoulder. She comes back with two, hurtling both through Valravn's shadowy form.

A nuisance is all that it is, as both arrows clip through the wings that she can barely make out in the shadows, the scimitars left behind on the ground with nothing to pick the weapons back up. Vesuvia hisses again, running her palm back over the wound in her knee, and both cuts on her elbows. All of this blood, all of this time… when she should be out of here!

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Poem slowly getting to her feet, blood pouring down her body from the wound in her shoulder. A distraction, that is all those mutts were, those gods brought back to life as if the Gamemakers had the power to bring anyone back from the dead. As if!

"They won't be able to bring Poem back from the dead when I'm done with her," Vesuvia tells herself smarmily, keeping the smirk level on her face, as she holds onto the singular knife left in her grasp.

She flings herself towards Poem, not giving the girl any time to recuperate before they're colliding into one another again, Vesuvia vaulting into her so hard that they both tumble over a boulder, colliding onto the ground.

This is bullshit, all of this is such bullshit! Vesuvia snarls a nondescript word, syllables melding together, spit dribbling down her chin in rage, she holding onto the knife, raising it high in the air. She is about to dive it into Poem's skull, one hand resting on top of the girl's shoulder wound, where Poem's mouth is wide and open in a terrified scream, when Poem leans forward, clamping her mouth down onto Vesuvia's left hand.

"You fucking bitch!" Vesuvia screams at her, having to tear her hand away. There is another flash of agonizing pain that cascades down her body, where she can hear the voices of her naysayers laughing at her, the voices being that of her uncle, where she's a failure, or of Jasper, where her body will be nothing when she's dead, where not even ravens will want to pluck the eyes out of her skull.

Poem is fleeing again, vanishing off into the night, but Vesuvia scrambles to her feet, resuming the chase. Nothing is going to get in her way now, or so help everything that is holy, she is going to keep the girl's corpse for maiming until the end of time when the seas swallow Panem, and the sun has gone black…

The tower is out in front of them, the structure formidable even in the dead of night, Poem racing towards it, though at a much more sluggish pace than before. Vesuvia feels exhaustion sinking into her soul as well, as the two girls, she hot on the girl from Eight's heels. Poem collapses down onto her hands and knees, crying out from that, slowly crawling herself up the steps.

As long as she has the girl in her arms, Vesuvia doesn't care how long it takes for Poem to die, as long as she dies.

Vesuvia reaches for another two arrows from the quiver, vaulting both of them at Poem. One of them misses her, soaring straight over her shoulder, the other digging into the back of Poem's right shoulder. The girl lifts her head up to the sky, the pain evident on her face from Vesuvia's vantage point lower on the stairs, but there's no utterance of sound.

Poem continues to crawl, Vesuvia taking her first step up to the top of the tower, body trembling, but she will not fall. She will not. A Vocanova does not crawl to the finish line, nor do they limp. They run so fast that they never even see the finish line before them.

Vesuvia takes her time getting to the top of the tower, just a few feet behind Poem, whose movements are slowing, slowing as scarlet spills out from both girls' wounds, the tide of red cascading down the staircase to the tower. Vesuvia doesn't mind the squelching noises the puddles of blood make as her booted feet splash in Poem's wake of scarlet and desperation.

There's some whimpers, some crying, Vesuvia absorbing all of it and letting it sink into her bloodstream. She reaches the top, ducking her head inside, cooing lowly in her throat at the sight that awaits her. Poem is standing, oh bless her, wobbling from side to side, one singular knife in her hands.

"You look so tired," Vesuvia coos, shaking her head. "Why don't you let me put you to rest, dearie?"

"Not… not a chance," Poem sputters out, her entire body trembling. The girl lashes out, snarling something low and fierce in her throat, but Vesuvia simply steps out of the way of the strike, grabbing Poem by the arm, flinging the weapon up.

It flies from Poem's grasp, hitting the ceiling, flopping onto the floor. Vesuvia holds her own blade tightly in her grip, turning her knuckles white, exerting as much power as she can with the thrust that sends her weapon into Poem's side.

The girl from Eight gives out a pained gasp, her body going rigid with shock, Vesuvia wrenching the blade out, blood splattering onto her arm. Warmth… so ironic, Vesuvia realizes, that the loss of life, where a body is turned so cold, unleashes a liquid that is so warm. Warm enough to bathe in, Vesuvia deduces, as she watches Poem drop to the ground, trying to roll over and crawl away. Away towards the other end of the tower, the starry night sky peeking through the windows atop it.

Vesuvia tilts her head back and laughs.

"Poem, I did ask you earlier, before we started all this, what sort of ending you wanted…" she shakes her head, digging her hands into her pocket for the vial of poison given to her at the feast. Vesuvia knows how to follow directions, and this is her commandment from up high, from the legion that'll welcome her into their ranks with open arms. She uncaps the vial, dumping a dollop of it onto her knife, a coalescing droplet of Poem's blood falling down onto the ground beneath their feet.

Vesuvia takes a step forward, sure she hears a shaky fuck you tossed in her direction, but what does it matter anymore? Good things come to those who wait.

"I'll make sure your death isn't forgotten about, Poem," Vesuvia says. "When my videogames hit the shelves, you'll have become my biggest inspiration. The 'Idiot Who Thought She Could,' does sound like a good ring to it, doesn't it?"

Another expletive tossed in her direction, even as Poem tries dragging away from her, unable to stop the sounds of utter agony that are for sure wracking her body into a shutdown that'll come sooner than later.

Vesuvia makes a clucking noise in her mouth. "Somehow, somehow, you really believed that the First Lady would want designs from you? From your hideous collection and your stupid mind? Dumb, Poem. Stupid aspirations, but you don't need me to tell you that, I bet," she says, slowly making her way over to Poem's body.

The girl who she's wanted to see as nothing more than just a portrait in the sky, or as a name whispered on her lips with the girl's blood coating Vesuvia's own… she doesn't even put up a fight as Vesuvia rolls her over, Poem's mouth open and wide in an outstretched silent scream of utter agony.

She ignores her own pain, pain that won't matter anymore when the victor's crown sets nicely on her skull.

"Make way for your victor," Vesuvia whispers into Poem's ear, pressing the cold blade against her throat. "Make way for your empress," she presses a sweet hand through Poem's bloody strands of hair, her one singular braid a reminder of the carnage they've dealt to one another. "Your queen-"

Vesuvia keeps her smile on her face, going to finish the syllable when it breaks off in her throat with a bubble of pain.

She widens her eyes with fright, a sudden pressure and deflation in her chest that should not be there… Vesuvia lets go of the poisoned blade, it sliding away from Poem's throat and off of her with a splatter of green goop.

The girl looks down from where the pain is radiating from, wheezing lowly as Poem withdraws a glimmering silver sewing needle from her chest, from her heart, before puncturing her again with it, stabbing Vesuvia Vocanova in the heart twice.

Through the pain reflected in Poem's eyes, there's a steeliness, a steeliness that Vesuvia believes she had burnt out of her, a strength Vesuvia thought one could lose through bleeding wounds and despairing emotions.

Poem's mouth is twisted in a sneer, jaw clamped together, teeth glistening in a copper spray. "At least my dreams, Vesuvia, are based in reality…"

The girl from Eight withdraws the sewing needle from Vesuvia's body, tugging her forward, pushing, pushing, pushing… until Vesuvia Vocanova's body is tumbling forward out of the open window behind them, and Poem Cavalli is not coming with her.

Vesuvia remembers falling, she remembers what it felt to be on top of the world. She recalls the delight in knowing that her stare could get people to do her bidding. She loves that her hips could get any man from miles over crawling towards her in any direction.

Vesuvia hears it, her worst nightmare, the trumpets that sound, the cheering of the Capitol streets, the excitement, oh, the palpable excitement in Cain Passionia's voice that declares:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present your very first victor, from District Eight, of our first annual Hunger Games, Miss Poem Cavalli!"

A Vocanova does not die. A Vocanova cannot be killed. A Vocanova is immortal.

Vesuvia's heart gives out before she hits the ground, and her cannon fires, proving in fact, despite all the odds, despite all that has preceded before her… a Vocanova can be wrong.

---

2nd: Vesuvia Vocanova, District 3 Female, 18. Killed by Poem Cavalli via sewing needle to the heart. Submitted by Platrium. Like all the tributes that have died before her, Vesuvia was... she was something special. For the longest time, and I am talking about months here, I had Vesuvia winning. She was always slated to be in this finale fight, whether that finalist be Niklaus, or Camilla, or Kai'sa, or Catalus, whom I all considered. Then I settled on her and Poem, and for the longest time, Vesuvia was my victor. But, as you can tell, I changed it. Vesuvia, my darling, you are infamous. You are perhaps my favorite villainous tribute - maybe even favorite villain, I'll go that far - that I have had the pleasure of writing. You were magnificent, and gave off such a bloody, beautiful show not just because you were asked to, but because you could. Even in death, you couldn't admit defeat, couldn't squander your own ego, and I don't blame you. Plat, I don't know where to begin on my endless gratitude for her, and I am sorry you have been robbed of another victor, but the chips have fallen, and I am going to miss her more than you know.

---

1st/Victor of the 1st Hunger Games: Poem Cavalli, District 8 Female, 16 [Submitted by LordShiro]

2nd: Vesuvia Vocanova, District 3 Female, 18, killed by Poem Cavalli via sewing needle to the heart. Submitted by Platrium.

3rd: Catalus Drachma, District 1 Male, 18, killed by Vesuvia Vocanova via head being bashed into the cornucopia. Submitted by Manny Siliezar.

4th: Magnus Winterthorn, District 2 Male, 18, killed by Catalus Drachma via sword to the throat. Submitted by Audmirable.

5th: Camilla Rodriguez, District 9 Female, 17, killed by Magnus Winterthorn via arrow through the lungs. Submitted by Reign of Winter.

6th: Porscha Watanabe, District 6 Female, 16, killed by Magnus Winterthorn via beam sword through the neck. Submitted by thornehub.

7th: Jasper Overheart, District 3 Male, 18, killed by Vesuvia Vocanova via being burnt alive at the stake. Submitted by ParanoidSylph.

8th: Diana Kratovska, District 4 Female, 17, killed by the 'arena/mutt' via being crushed to death by a cave-in. Submitted by Firedawn'd.

9th: Nokomis Yanaba, District 9 Female, 16, killed by Poem Cavalli via knife to the throat. Submitted by Ripple237.

10th: Orion Maythorpe, District 10 Male, 18, killed by Jasper Overheart via sword to the heart and blood loss via dismemberment. Submitted by jimster921.

11th: Portia Beninblade, District 2 Female, 18, killed by Porscha Watanabe via multiple stab wounds to the chest. Submitted by WhateverIsOpen.

12th: Ramses Boskov, District 12 Male, 17, killed by Diana Kratovska via skull caved in by a shield. Submitted by Guesttwelve.

13th: Kai'sa Shadow, District 12 Female, 16, killed by Camilla Rodriguez via knife thrown into the throat. Submitted by Rune Whisperer.

14th: Sylvan Adello, District 7 Male, 14, killed by Catalus Drachma via bled out from spear to the gut. Submitted by In Writing.

15th: Niklaus Peverell, District 8 Male, 18, killed by Orion Maythorpe via beheading with an axe. Submitted by timesphobic.

16th: Gemini Lennox, District 9 Male, 17, killed by Cassiopeia Grey via multiple stab wounds to the chest. Submitted by Apple1230.

17th: Cassiopeia Grey, District 11 Female, 13, killed by Gemini Lennox via electrocution. Submitted by ZeroIsANumber.

18th: Nevaeh Davoli, District 7 Female, 17, killed by the 'arena/mutt' via Valravn tearing her throat open. Submitted by dyloccupy.

19th: Kileigh Katsaras, District 5 Female, 17, killed by Porscha Watanabe via caved in skull. Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie

20th: Pierce Alversway, District 6 Male, 15, killed by Magnus Winterthorn via arrow to the heart. Submitted by Merlin's Brown Jacket.

21st: Calen Kinegrove, District 10 Male, 15, killed by Portia Beninblade via slit throat. Submitted by silversshade.

22nd: Cecelia Blackstone, District 1 Female, 13, killed by Diana Kratovska via arrow to the back of the head. Submitted by A Proud Bibliophile.

23rd: Dill Waylon, District 11 Male, 16, killed by Vesuvia Vocanova via strangulation. Submitted by A Mad Tea Party.

24th: Zachary Edison, District 5 Male, 12, killed by Nokomis Yanaba via sword to the chest. Submitted by GreyShade.

...

Final Kill Leaderboard

Catalus Drachma (D1M): II
Magnus Winterthorn (D2M): III
Portia Beninblade (D2F): I
Jasper Overheart (D3M): I
Vesuvia Vocanova (D3F): III
Orion Maythorpe (D4M): I
Diana Kratovska (D4F): II
Porscha Watanabe (D6F): II
Poem Cavalli (D8F): II
Gemini Lennox (D9M): I
Camilla Rodriguez (D9F): I
Nokomis Yanaba (D10F): I
Cassiopeia Grey (D11F): I
Arena/Mutt: II

---

*cues the screaming*

So yes... ha-ha, we... ladies and gentlemen, have a victor. Congratulate the crowning of Poem Cavalli, our D8F, submitted by the wonderful and amazing LordShiro! Shiro, you can commence the screaming in my DMs as I am sure you're gonna flock to it when you're done reading... it is time, my friend, to change your profile, cause you have a victor! As I have said before, countless times, I have had multiple victor choices for this story, with Niklaus, Catalus, Camilla, even Kai'sa, and of course, Vesuvia, sharing it... but then I realized how dumb I'd be to have this girl slip through my fingers. Poem Cavalli, without a doubt, is one of the most original SYOT tributes I've ever seen, and I have been so blessed in my writing career to have been given a sub of this caliber. She was funny, charismatic, deluded, doomed, confident, and most of all, compelling. I had her initial death placement as 5th, so I always thought of her in a high regard, but I just... I *know* that there is more work to be done with Poem, and her time is not up. Shiro, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for her, thank you for this gift. Poem, young lady, take your crown in stride; you look gorgeous with gold on your head.

I hope this chapter was gripping, exhaustive (I am exhausted, I wrote Vesuvia's *entire* pov in a single sitting) and with the musical accompaniment, stressful and engaging. Our story, however, while we celebrate, is not over yet. Poem's journey into this Capitol storyline I've been stringing along will begin, and threads that pile on and on are going to be coming to a head... we are far from over; rather, just beginning. Three epilogues with four povs each, starting with our immediate aftermath of this victory. I'll see you all on Monday with the first epilogue, Chapter #39: The Devil's Map.

Hands are shaking, and I really do hope I hear from you guys, as your feedback and love will be greatly appreciated, as this arena has been a journey, and I am going to miss every element that made it what it is. I love you all so much, and I hope you have a great day! Bye!

~ Paradigm